Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. Over the past 30 years, I've been listening to people's stories. The stories of their lives, what's caused them to be the way they are,

the events in their life that have caused

them unhappiness, and the events in their life that have caused them happiness.

And though there's been innumerable things that I've learned about human behavior,

the one thing that I've learned is that we affect each other.

The way we treat others matter.

So if a person's raised in a critical, unkind, cruel environment, they're going to

be affected by these behaviors. The words, the actions of people that were raised with and exposed to throughout

our lives truly matter. Some parents, very sadly, say words that are so cruel and unkind to the children like I wish

you'd never been born or you'll never amount to anything your worthless piece of blank.

Or they may do terrible things like beat them or sexually abuse them.

Or sometimes when we grow up other people like our peers at school treat us horribly or cruelly or say things about us that reverberate in our minds for years to come. You may have had that experience

or you may know someone that had a very challenging childhood growing up.

And I'm not surprised to see that the ripple effects of this unkindness affect people

and affect them in very many ways.

They may end up getting in an abusive relationship when they're finally free of their family

upbringing.

They may turn to drugs or alcohol to numb the effects of the words that reverberate through

their brain and cause them so much suffering.

Sadly, some of them turn towards being unkind when they have their children or

getting relationships with other people. They now turn that venom on these people

that they actually love and it becomes a vicious cycle of cruelty

...